“There’s [been] so much talk about the record and if it happens today or tomorrow or the next day,” the 27-year-old Shiffrin said last week. “ … I’m trying to take every day step by step, pushing the right way, skiing the right way.”
Shiffrin, whose first World Cup win came in Are in December 2012, entered this season with 74 World Cup wins. She clinched last weekend her fifth World Cup overall title, which annually goes to the skier with the most points over the course of the season.
“At the start of the season, I didn’t think I was coming close to this 86 number [this year], so my goal was the overall globe,” she said then.
The 66-year-old Stenmark has described Shiffrin as being a “much better” skier than he was.
“You cannot compare,” he recently told the Associated Press. “She has everything. She has good physical strength, she has a good technique, strong head. I think it’s the combination of everything makes her so good. And I’m also impressed that she can ski good both in slalom and in super-G and downhill also. I could never have been so good in all disciplines.”
All 86 of Stenmark’s wins were in slalom (40) or giant slalom (46); Shiffrin’s 87 wins have come in slalom (53), giant slalom (20) or parallel (five), super-G (five), downhill (three) and combined (one).
Stenmark said he planned to watch the competition in Are from his home outside Stockholm rather than attend in person.
“I will, of course, watch on TV,” Stenmark said, adding that “it would be a little bit strange for me to go to Are to celebrate Shiffrin when we have the Swedish girls also. If it would have been another place, it would be easier.”
